Wednesday, October 10, 2012

As I'm waiting to board a plane, this surprised me -- promising to address
climate change is a vote getter?:

Why Aren't Politicians Listening to Joe Romm About Climate Change?, by Chris
Mooney, The Atlantic: He's been called "America's fiercest climate blogger." ...
Romm has called Obama's failure to speak out about global warming, loudly and
often, his "biggest communications mistake."

Now, a
raft of new polls are showing that this issue has the potential to move
independent and swing voters... So we stopped to chat with Romm ... about his
unusual take on this subject. ...

Do you think this has always been true -- that climate change has always
been a potential political winner -- or has it become more true over time?...

There's no question that the Obama team has gotten a misimpression that this is
not a winning issue. And that I think is based on some rather questionable
analysis done years ago, that basically said, "if you only present the doom and
gloom case, you turn some people off." But nobody really does that -- nobody I
know does that. ...

The polling data seems clear: This is a classic wedge issue that separates
conservatives not just from progressives, but also from moderates and
independents. So you know, we can spend a lot of time being puzzled about why
this administration does bizarre messaging. If you talk to communications
experts, many will say this administration is not great at it. You can get upset
about President Obama not bringing up climate change, but this is not an
administration that's good at communicating -- and this is just one of the many
areas that they mistakenly downplay. ...

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Why Aren't Politicians Talking about Climate Change?

As I'm waiting to board a plane, this surprised me -- promising to address
climate change is a vote getter?:

Why Aren't Politicians Listening to Joe Romm About Climate Change?, by Chris
Mooney, The Atlantic: He's been called "America's fiercest climate blogger." ...
Romm has called Obama's failure to speak out about global warming, loudly and
often, his "biggest communications mistake."

Now, a
raft of new polls are showing that this issue has the potential to move
independent and swing voters... So we stopped to chat with Romm ... about his
unusual take on this subject. ...

Do you think this has always been true -- that climate change has always
been a potential political winner -- or has it become more true over time?...

There's no question that the Obama team has gotten a misimpression that this is
not a winning issue. And that I think is based on some rather questionable
analysis done years ago, that basically said, "if you only present the doom and
gloom case, you turn some people off." But nobody really does that -- nobody I
know does that. ...

The polling data seems clear: This is a classic wedge issue that separates
conservatives not just from progressives, but also from moderates and
independents. So you know, we can spend a lot of time being puzzled about why
this administration does bizarre messaging. If you talk to communications
experts, many will say this administration is not great at it. You can get upset
about President Obama not bringing up climate change, but this is not an
administration that's good at communicating -- and this is just one of the many
areas that they mistakenly downplay. ...